Theatre Censorship in Honecker’s Germany: From Volker Braun to Samuel Beckett (review)

Theatre Censorship in Honecker’s Germany is the first monograph to deal with the control and regulation of the GDR theatre between 1971 and 1989. Barrie Baker defines censorship in the broad sense of the term, as “including not only formal procedures but also social conditioning, and the influence of the political and mass organisations and drama criticism in the media” (10). Accordingly, he casts his net widely, covering the roles of party (SED) and state authorities, the Union of Theatre Practitioners, the Stasi, theatre critics, managers, and dramaturgs. Baker complements his analysis of two productions of plays by Samuel Beckett and Volker Braun with broader contextual discussions of the regulation of theatre, developments in drama, and GDR cultural policy.

Baker’s original research in the Bundesarchiv (federal archive) and his interviews with East German theatre practitioners enable him to provide an interesting and informative overview of theatre censorship in chapter 2. This chapter refers to theatres across the GDR, bringing out the tensions between East Berlin and other cities and towns, and includes examples of tricks used to help productions through the controls. Baker uses the existing secondary literature to provide a detailed overview of the development of Stasi surveillance before presenting his own primary research on the nature and extent of Stasi activity, focusing chiefly on the Hans-Otto-Theatre in Potsdam. He concludes “that the Stasi did not stand by to await instructions from the SED: they developed agendas of their own, even to the extent of planning where a play should be performed” (99).

Baker offers a detailed synthesis of secondary literature on censorship of the book, before exploring mechanisms specific to the publication of drama. It would have been helpful if this close attention to prepublication censorship had been complemented with a similarly detailed discussion of the standard procedures involved in the approval of productions; while Baker notes the 1978 requirement that new plays had to be approved by the culture minister, he does not examine the production concepts submitted by theatres, recommendations and instructions made by the authorities, or records of the annual discussions between theatres and local and central officials over the repertoire. This is probably because he has not consulted regional state archives, apart from one relevant file in Berlin’s Landesarchiv. This omission is problematic because, as Baker points out, day-to-day control of theatre was the province of local officials. It is in regional archives that much of the material concerning the negotiations over individual productions is held, and consultation of this material would have enabled Baker to offer a more detailed assessment of pre-performance censorship. The decision not to consult regional archives causes problems when the author comes to assess the situation in Anklam in the early 1980s; here, he claims that the controversial director Frank Castorf “was able to work with the ensemble without restriction,” and that “local politicians and functionaries did not register any views concerning the quality of Castorf’s work” (126). In fact, the files in the Landesarchiv Schwerin show that Castorf was engaged in a bitter and protracted conflict with local officials, who had very clear views on his work and strove to engineer his departure.

Baker’s case studies focus on productions of Volker Braun’s Die Übergangsgesellschaft (Society in Transition) in East Berlin (1988) and of Samuel Beckett’s Warten auf Godot (Waiting for Godot) in Dresden (1987). These productions provide insights into the experience of theatre censorship in two major cities, while also illustrating the different challenges of staging recent GDR drama and introducing a previously banned Western play to the repertoire. (Interestingly, GDR censorship was not the only constraint on Godot, as Beckett’s representatives rejected the director’s proposal for an all-female cast.) In each case study, Baker locates the production in its broader context, analyzes the text, assesses the methods by which...